Geeks whup Marine ass in Call Of Duty 5

The streets of San Francisco were yesterday awash with blood as geeks battled real-life Marines at the debut of Activision's Call Of Duty: World at War - an apparently unequal struggle which in fact saw one "bespectacled teenager" ice an entire elite Marine unit "without so much as straining a thumb".

Up to 1,500 gamers queued at a GameStop outlet which had been "decked out like an Army field base" for the Veterans Day punch-up between saddos and Marines. The latter wisely decided to participate from the safety of their bases as teams of six went head-to-head on a WWII Eastern European battleground, deploying "virtual machine guns, flame throwers, tanks and more" in an orgy of mindless violence and much a-whoopin' and a-hollerin'.

Andrew Conley, 21, described the hellish nature of war thus: "I went positive in my kill-to-death ratio; that was pretty slick. A couple of times I got swarmed. I go off on my own to fight, and those Marines tend to work as a team."

"Sure you can do it in the game," a Marine taunted. "We do it for real."

In the end, the carnage went to a tie-breaker as the opposing sides fought their way to an eight battles apiece draw. The Marines eventually prevailed, with a triumphant Shane Palmer concluding: "Awesome. It's great fun."

Call Of Duty: World at War - the fifth in the COD series - is centred on "key clashes between US, Japanese, Soviet Union and Nazi Germany forces at the close of World War II". In the original battles, of course, a kill-to-death ratio of X to anything greater than 0 meant a trip home in a body bag. ®